Victoria & Abdul

by Shrabani Basu

  Karim ended the year on another high note. He wrote:

  Now at the close of this eighth volume of Her Majesty’s Hindustani lessons, her humble teacher the Munshi would again lift up his voice in thankfulness to His God for his mercies.

  To tell of all the kindnesses & honours received of God through Her Gracious Majesty is quite beyond his power. Their name is legion. But the Munshi must chronicle with deepest gratitude and humility how that his father has been made a Khan Bahadur by the Govt of India for his 40 years of able and faithful service, and how that Her Majesty recognizing the increasing duties of her Munshi in taking the charge of various important papers & in undertaking the arrangements for the service of Indian Attendants, has been fit to honour him with the title of CIE and this she did on her last happy birthday, the 77th of her age, and the 58th of her reign.

  The past year like all years, has had its joys and its sorrows, but on the whole I think it has been a happy year for Her Majesty. There has been it is true the death of the mother of Prince Henry of Battenberg and likewise the death of the old Highland Attendant of Her Majesty, Francis Clark, but these events sad as they were have been outweighed by the joyful news which has come of the betrothals of Princess Alexandra of Coburg and of Princess Maud of Wales. This last engagement has been eagerly looked for and it is certain was hailed with great pleasure by the Queen.

  In the future English history will tell us of an important event of the past year viz the visit of H.H Nasrullah Khan, son of the Ameer of Afghanistan as the guest of the Queen and the Royal Family. Again we shall read with interest and pleasure of the visit of Don Carlos, King of Portugal, as the guest of Her Majesty at Balmoral. Scotland indeed is glad and proud to receive this friendly visit of a foreign potentate.

  The Munshi prays for the long life and happiness of Her Majesty and the members of the Royal Family through whom he had the honour of being presented to the Royal guest from Portugal.

  Lastly, happy was the day that brought the glad tidings to Her Majesty of the birth of a daughter on the 18th of November last to the Empress of all the Russians.

  The last sorrow also was a great, the loss of Her Majesty’s good, kind and true friend, Sir Henry Ponsonby’s death on the 21st November last.

  I am my readers, obedient servant, H. Abdul Karim. December 2, 189526

  Remarkably free of spelling or major grammatical errors, the entry in English in Karim’s handwriting showed that the Munshi had made great progress and had nearly mastered the Queen’s language.

  10

  REBELLION IN THE RANKS

  The Munshi was to be shadowed. Though opinion was still divided in the government on how dangerous he was, he was visiting India, and the Viceroy wanted his movements carefully tracked.

  ‘The Munshi is coming out. I am not sure about the exact date, but about this time,’1 an excited Lord Elgin wrote to Lord Sandhurst, the Governor of Bombay. He advised him to be cautious in following the Munshi and asked him to report back if any of the ‘intriguers’ in the native states and elsewhere who were ‘generally watched by the British government’ made any attempt to approach him.

  Elgin had received the clearance from Whitehall to follow the Munshi, but advised extreme caution. He was clear that while no steps were to be taken that could be seen to ‘show a dislike for the Munshi personally’, general information about visitors and the like could be easily obtained. The whole matter was conducted in hushed tones and confidential telegrams. Elgin wrote personally to Sandhurst so that ‘no written instructions need issue to any police officer’. He informed Sandhurst that the Munshi could be contacted by ‘the certain gentleman’ he had mentioned while in Bombay. ‘My object therefore is to ask you to do what you can with as little stir as possible,’ the Viceroy said. ‘You will understand that mistaken zeal in this case might do more harm than good and would be capable of any amount of misrepresentation.’

  Earlier, in February 1896, Hamilton, who had just taken over from Henry Fowler as Secretary of State for India, had told Elgin that he did not think the Munshi was ‘as dangerous’ as some believed and that the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, concurred with that view. ‘He [the Munshi] is a stupid man,’ wrote Hamilton. ‘And on that account he may become a tool in the hands of other men.’2 However, Hamilton clearly thought it worthwhile to ask for surveillance orders on the Munshi, but he clarified that this would have to be done with extreme caution as it could backfire if the Queen got to know. He wrote:

  I think that you would be justified in keeping such general notice of his proceedings as to enable you to determine whether or not anything unusual is going on and if there are signs of a proper agenda of intrigue to have recourse to closer supervision. I should be inclined to restrict at first to a very general and unobtrusive supervision … It would be better to err on the side of laxity than of vigour of watch at first.

  Elgin, too, was worried that if it was discovered they were unnecessarily trailing the Munshi, it could do more harm to the authority of the Indian government than ‘any amount of underhand intrigue’. About the Queen, he felt: ‘The older anyone becomes the less reasonable they are to argument in anything effecting the personality of a favourite.’3

  Meanwhile, the New Year had begun gloomily in Osborne House. Prince Henry of Battenberg, husband of Princess Beatrice and the Queen’s youngest son-in-law, died of fever on 20 January. He had gone to West Africa to join the Ashanti expedition just over a month ago, but had contracted high fever and died at sea on his way back. His death left the Queen distraught. She had been very fond of her son-in-law, called Liko by the family, who had lived under her roof after the wedding. She relied on him much more than she did on her son and heir, Bertie. With two of her daughters widowed, the Queen felt helpless. The body arrived at Portsmouth and, after the funeral on the Isle of Wight, the Queen sent Beatrice and the four children to Cimiez to recover at the Villa Liserb. She would join them later in the spring.

  The Munshi, who always stood by the Queen’s side like a rock on these tragic occasions, was also to go on leave soon. He was as upset as she was about the death and wrote in his journal: ‘How suddenly does death sometime steal upon us. Truly it is the terminator of delights, the separator of Friends, the Devastation of Palaces and Houses and the replenisher of graves.’

  The Munshi’s mother-in-law had fallen ill, and he felt he had to take her back to India. ‘It was extremely disappointing to me to have to ask leave of absence at a time when Her Majesty was as sad and had so much to do,’ he wrote. The Queen would miss him terribly as he would be away for six months. It was with a mournful heart and without Karim that she set out for Europe to revisit Cimiez. Both were unaware that the Munshi was to be watched.

  After a smooth passage Karim landed in Bombay on 14 March with his wife and mother-in-law, carrying the sword and two rifles given to him by the Queen. He sailed through Customs without any encumbrances, as the Queen had ensured that all permissions were given beforehand. By the time Lord Sandhurst got the telegram from Elgin, Karim had already left Bombay and was on his way to Agra. They had left immediately on 17 March as the fast of Ramadan was to begin soon.

  On 20 March, two days after the Munshi had reached Agra, a confidential memo from Government House Bombay to the Viceroy reported: ‘The visitor from enquiries I made apparently passed through and I don’t know where he has gone, but I shd. think most likely to Agra.’4 The Munshi, it seems, had not tried to communicate with any ‘suspicious person’. He did not call on Sandhurst, either; something the Governor General had been secretly dreading. He told Elgin he was relieved he did not have to meet him and that he was sorry that the Munshi and his brother were causing trouble. Sandhurst, however, felt that it wasn’t a ‘serious’ matter at present.

  The close watch on the Munshi continued, but he was always ahead of the powers that were tailing him. In Agra, he found his father looking extremely ill. It was a tearful family reunion, all the more because his wife and mother-in-law h
ad returned for the first time. Karim spent a few relaxed days in Agra, drove around like a nawab in his carriage and made enquiries about purchasing the land adjoining the vast stretch that the Queen had already bestowed on him. The land ear-marked by him was 143 acres of prime government land. It would make the Munshi and his family wealthy landowners in Agra, adding property to the already swelling number of honours being bestowed on him by the Queen. His wife visited the Agra jewellers and ordered jewellery. Karim was never one to deny his wife her indulgences. Local Muslim groups approached him for charity contributions and favours, and the Munshi delighted in this as it added to his sense of self-esteem. With the Queen as his chief patron, the Munshi was considered extremely important and visitors flooded through his doors to hear firsthand the stories from the Royal Palace.

  When Karim delayed his departure and failed to board the Peninsular back for England on 26 June, the officials went on full alert. The Thugee and Dacoity Department stayed hot on his trail and S. Bayley of the department wrote immediately to the Inspector General’s office in the North-West Province(NWP). He received the reply that the Munshi was not likely to leave India until he knew whether the NWP government was going to ‘let him buy at his own price a plot of govt land adjoining and equal in size to the plot given him in jagir some time ago’. The Munshi was reported to have left Agra for Kashmir on the night of 27 June. Messages were relayed to Gulmarg in Kashmir and officials there replied that the person believed to be the Queen’s Munshi had passed Baramula in Srinagar and intended to stay two days.5

  All networks of the Thugee and Dacoity Department from the North-West Provinces to Kashmir remained on alert and another telegram was posted to Babington Smith at the Viceroy’s office on 24 July: ‘Col Lock, PA Eastern states, Rajputana writes on the 22nd. Passing through Agra, I heard that the Munshi had obtained a further extension of three weeks. I think this is reliable. Donald Franklin.’6

  A full report on the Munshi’s travels was prepared by the department on 14 September 1896 and transmitted to London by Bayley, and a copy marked to Lee Warner at the India Office.

  Confidential telegram 30.3.97

  Report on Munshi

  Munshi Abdul Karim, C.I.E came to India by the mail steamer which arrived in Bombay on the 18th March 1896, and went to Agra.

  His real object in returning to India is said to have been to purchase, at his own price, a plot of government land adjoining and equal in size to the plot given him in jagir for two lives some time ago.

  The Muslim Chronicle (Calcutta) of the 25th April 1896, had a paragraph stating that the Munshi had earned the thanks of the Muhammaddan community by handing over a building worth Rs 14,000 to the Anjuman Hamdard-i-Islam of Agra for the purpose of opening an orphanage. No confirmation of this statement has been received.

  He remained in Agra till the 27th June 1896, when he left for Kashmir. He arrived at Baramulla on the 2nd of July and went on to Srinagar where he arrived on the 5th and left again on the 7th idem. He stayed, while in Srinagar, with Azizu-d-din Kansa, alias Samad Shah, but took his meals at the house of Babu Sham Narain, Munsif, who gave him a nach. He visited some of the places of interest near Srinagar. On his way back he paid a flying visit to Jammu and stayed for one day in the dak-bungalow there. Is not stated whether any one visited him at the dak-bungalow. Pundit Bhag Ram was told of the Munshi’s visit by Pandit Sham Narain, assistant judge, Srinagar, who is a friend of the Munshi and had heard of it from him.

  The papers mentioned that the Munshi visited Delhi on his return from Kashmir, but enquiries made failed to elicit any particulars regarding his proceedings there.

  He left Bombay with his wife and his son [sic] by the mail steamer of the 21st August 1896.

  During his stay at Agra he is reported to have received visits from Captain Ahmed Husain of the Nizam’s personal Body Guard and Rahim Baksh, a pensioned Deputy collector (formerly a hospital assistant) from Bhartpur.7

  Karim had, in fact, been enjoying a ‘very busy and pleasant holiday’. He first visited his brother Abdul Aziz in Bah, where he went hunting and killed ‘crocodiles, between fifty to sixty antelope and smaller game’. Then he visited Jaipur, where he met his friend, Hakim Mohammed Salim Khan Bahadur, the former Prime Minister of Jaipur and toured the city’s palaces and forts and went hunting for antelopes, killing seven. He secured six weeks’ extension of his leave, and travelled with his former colleague in Windsor, Captain Ahmed Husain, and his niece’s husband, Mohammed Ajaj Husain to Kashmir. He even had a slight mishap in the Woolar Lake while shooting wild fowl: when Ajaz Hussain jumped from one small doongah to another, Karim was sent headlong into the water, with his gun and chair. His friends only knew he had fallen because they saw his head bobbing on the surface and managed to pull him out. ‘Needless to say everyone of us were very thankful that I was none the worse for the unexpected immersion,’ he wrote in his Journal.

  In Srinagar, which he described as the ‘Venice of India’, he met his old friend Pandit Sham Narain, with whom he had worked for the Nawab of Jawara. He visited the Chasme Shahi (the fountain made by the Shah) and Hazrat-e-Bal mausoleum and climbed the Takht-e-Suleiman or the throne of Solomon, an isolated peak rising from the edge of the river. At no time was he aware that he was being watched.

  On 18 August he left Agra for England. Since his mother-inlaw had to be left behind, he took his young nephew, Ahmed Rashid, back with him to England so his wife would not be too lonely. On 21 August they sailed from Bombay on the Oriental.

  Meanwhile, further confidential memos were exchanged between political agents, the Thugee and Dacoity Department, the Viceroy’s office and Whitehall right up to mid-October. By then the Munshi was back in Balmoral unaware of the hullabaloo that he had caused. The Queen even sent a messenger to receive him and his family in Calais. The gossip columns of Reynold’s Newspaper reported ‘the great event’ of the ‘Munshi’s return to Deeside’ in an article boldly headlined: ‘John Brown’s Successor’. News that the Munshi’s nephew had arrived delighted the Queen who immediately went to visit the young boy. The familiar routine was re-established, the Hindustani lessons resumed and the Queen realised even more how much she missed the Indian when he was away.

  Marie Mallet, the Queen’s maid-in-waiting, described a visit to see the Munshi’s wife in their cottage in Balmoral in November:

  I have just been to see the Munshi’s wife (by Royal Command). She is fat and not uncomely, a delicate shade of chocolate and gorgeously attired, rings on her fingers, rings on her nose, a pocket mirror set in turquoises on her thumb and every feasible part of her person hung with chains and bracelets and ear-rings, a rose-pink veil on her head bordered with heavy gold and splendid silk and satin swathings round her person. She speaks English in a limited manner and declares she likes the cold. The house surrounded by a twenty foot palisade, the door opening of itself, the white figure emerging silently from a near chamber, all seemed so un-English, so essentially Oriental that we could hardly believe we were within a hundred yards of this Castle. Do not repeat this, it would not be safe, but in days to come it will be a curious bit of history.8

  Unknown to Queen Victoria, her Diamond Jubilee year in 1897 would be known by her Household as the ‘Year of the Munshi’. As the Queen sorted her mail with Karim, discussed guest lists for the event and made future plans, a mutiny was being plotted in an adjoining room.

  A major row was brewing behind the heavy oak door. Marie Mallet, maid-in-waiting, paced up and down, her face blazing red as she directed her anger at the figure of James Reid. The doctor stood motionless, his eyebrows knitted in a frown which, when combined with his dark sideburns, complimented his fierce expression.

  Jane Churchill, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, stood by the table in the corner of the room, her fingers picking nervously at the dark velvet fabric of an armchair. Beside her was Fritz Ponsonby, the young equerry and forceful anti-Munshi campaigner, protesting fiercely and supported by Sir Arthur Bigge, the Queen’s pers
onal secretary, who looked furious, even distraught.

  The news just broken by Reid had provoked this collective display of raised tempers. It concerned the Munshi. The doctor revealed that he had been treating the Munshi for gleet and a relapse of venereal disease. The Queen, said Reid, nevertheless wished to take him to Cimiez on her annual spring visit. This meant the Household would have to dine with him, which they were determined not to do. If Karim went, they would strike. Despite his best efforts, Reid could not quell the revolt. Her Majesty would have to be informed and Harriet Phipps, lady of the bedchamber, was picked for the job. Phipps was a slim lady with golden hair, who liked to dress with many trimmings and ribbons and always wore dozens of bangles that rattled so loudly that at times it even ‘worried her Royal Mistress’.9 She was the Queen’s private secretary and informally the head of the ladies of the Household. Phipps had a reputation as a tactful intermediary, but never before had she carried such an extreme ultimatum, the awesome task of relaying to her Queen the Household’s message. She would have to choose between them and her Munshi.

  Phipps gathered her stiffly starched skirts around her, thrust her chin out in a defiant mood, and walked briskly across the courtyard towards the Queen’s sitting room. Her heart was racing as she strode out, her bangles rattling even louder as she mounted the flight of steps in the Tower and approached the door. She knocked and entered. The Queen was sitting at her desk looking through a large pile of papers. Almost instinctively she knew that something was amiss.

  No sooner had Phipps spoken the words than the seventy-eight-year-old Queen flew into a violent rage, dramatically sweeping off the contents of her desk. Books, pens, papers, memos, boxes and mementoes went crashing to the floor as the Queen threw them down, shattering several glass objects in her fury. Never had Phipps seen her in such a state. She fled the room and tearfully conveyed the scene to the shocked Household. They had not expected the Queen to back her Munshi over them. For the incandescent Household, the Cimiez trip was a step too far.